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All artists face challenges and some more than others. Writer Lisa Cochrane is profiling six creative personalities with special challenges whose artistic fulfilment climb requires a wider ladder than most.

“The ocean is huge to me,” says Melanie Elliott-Nightingale. “I love to get out to a beach, slide down to sit closer to a piece of driftwood. It has a warm, inner energy that reminds me to appreciate what there is in my life, and not focus on what there isn’t.”

Melanie Elliott-Nightingale is an optimist if ever there was one.

You walk into her bright 16th-floor apartment in central Halifax and are greeted by a warm smile and handshake. Colourful paintings cover the walls. Some are arranged in groupings like in a commercial gallery: a beautiful series of Nova Scotia flowers, a dozen or so historic Halifax houses — all painted by Elliott-Nightingale. Other works are more randomly hung, special pieces created by loved ones holding court in the cheerful space, a delicate balance of order and creativity.

For the past 30 or so years Elliott has required the use of a wheelchair. She has a part-time caregiver. She has a gentleman companion. She has friends and volunteer commitments. She has her athletic activities. And she has her watercolour painting.

Elliott-Nightingale’s remarkable story begins as an identical twin born to a happy family in Bridgewater. She and her twin sister Melodie were close, her twin loving dance and gymnastics, Melanie preferring sports, mostly skiing and curling.

Melanie also loved music, and both girls loved to paint.

“We were lucky to have had such a creative and supportive family,” she says.

As young adults Melanie became a medical librarian; her sister a psychiatric nurse. Eventually they moved to the West Coast where they both became avid skiers at Whistler.

Tragically in the ’70s (when they were 24), Melanie’s twin Melodie broke her neck in a car accident in N.S. and became a quadriplegic overnight. Melodie went on to marry her fiancé who survived the accident relatively unscathed, and they ran two art galleries in B.C. until she died a few years ago.

Remarkably, just 12 years after the accident, Melanie suffered her own misfortune. At age 36 she was rendered comatose after she found herself, by pure chance, directly underneath a small plane in rural British Columbia while it dumped the neurotoxic pesticide Carbofuran — now banned in Canada — on a farmer’s field.

Melanie woke up in a Vancouver hospital, unable to speak, read or hear very well.

“I remember wearing a hospital housecoat and not being able to figure out how to tie the straps,” she says.

Being exposed to a powerful aerial-sprayed pesticide changed Melanie’s adventurous life forever. She was left with mobility limitations and very little ability to do abstract thinking; simple tasks like counting and telling the time had to be relearned. The unpredictable journey of navigating the world through the veil of cognitive and physical challenges had begun.

Melanie was divorced at the time and, like her disabled sister, had no children. Sadly, she watched her friends dwindle as she struggled to redefine herself.

Her rehab caregivers suggested a return to Nova Scotia to be closer to family so she moved back home — and away from Melodie — with no true sense of what her future held.

“I was on my feet to begin with,” she says, “but then things deteriorated. I have Ataxia, which is a compromised sense of distance mixed with damaged proprioception.”

Measuring the time durations of physical activities proved very difficult, which prompted her rehab neuropsychologist, Dr. Charles Mate-Kole, to permanently withhold the keys to her scooter, her main means of transportation at the time, for fear of her injuring herself further.

“I was determined to challenge the disability I had,” says Melanie with a grin, “because I wanted to go back to work in my career.”

Mate-Kole eventually found her a work placement at a library, which she surrendered after only three days. “I couldn’t do anything with numbers,” she says, “and was forced to accept my cognitive limits.”

After eight arduous years, Melanie fully realized the permanence of her condition and fell into a deep depression. Like her sister had before her, she attempted to take her own life through a drug overdose.

“I wanted help, not death,” she confesses, thankful she survived.

Melanie now advocates reaching out to others if you are feeling suicidal.

“Share your dark thoughts,” she says. “Mental illness no longer has the stigma it once had.”

She recalls how her quadriplegic sister eventually helped her recover from her darkest moments through painting, the irony of which was not wasted on her.

Artist and adventurer Melanie Elliott-Nightingale, at home surrounded by her watercolour paintings. (LISA COCHRANE)

“Melodie encouraged me to laugh at myself. We were mad artists together, doing crazy things, like flicking paint off toothbrushes and rolling around in paint on a drop sheet.” She adds: “That day, I heard myself laugh out loud for the first time in years. Since then, my paintbrushes have been wet.”

Realizing that she had to alter her recovery expectations, Melanie began to work at a slower pace. She joined the Canadian Paraplegic Association, which has been a wonderful resource for her, and with whom she has enjoyed a long and mutual beneficial relationship.

Nancy Beaton, executive director of the Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, expressed her gratitude for what Melanie has contributed to the organization over the years.

“Melanie is a loving family member, a talented, humble artist, a gracious community supporter, and a person who lives with a disability,” Beaton says.

With CPA’s ongoing support, Elliott-Nightingale became determined to find a new purpose in her life. She returned to the creative arts and the joy of physical activity that had defined her youth.

“People with disabilities bring all they have to offer as people first, and our communities and province are richer as a result,” Beaton says. “Melanie is a perfect example. She has generously donated her artwork for fundraising auctions and (has) also graciously given of her time as a board member.”

Melanie’s list of post-accident accomplishments is impressive and, at 71, she shows no signs of slowing down. Over the years she has worked with special needs children, has written for Ability Network magazine and taught speech reading. She has ridden horses, flown small planes and even tried to get back on her skis.

“My motion blindness kicked in with a vengeance,” she says. “Not only that, I became disoriented and got lost on the mountain. That was the end of skiing for me.”

As time went on, art played an increasingly important role in her life. “Painting flowers represents my connection to nature,” Melanie says. She is a very meticulous, self-taught yet highly skilled watercolour painter. Some of her flower paintings are as accurate as photographs.

“With my condition,” she says, “my sensual memory has increased. When painting a thistle I can feel its prickles. I can smell the scent of the flowers. I feel the cold off the ice I’m trying to capture in paint.”

Melanie says she enjoys painting collections of things like flowers, doorknobs on houses and houses themselves. Next she is planning to create a book of flowers with names from A to Z to give to the Girl Guides to help children identify flowers while walking in nature.

A few years ago Melanie published a book of her historic house paintings she called Nova Scotia Heritage and Home. She approached Easter Seals Nova Scotia and worked with them to sell enough copies to raise $1,500, which paid her registration for their Drop Zone program, where people rappel down the side of buildings to challenge their fears.

John MacDonald, director of development at Easter Seals Nova Scotia, remembers her well.

“Our slogan is Challenge Yourself and Change Lives,” he says. “We need people like Melanie who inspire others to live the best lives they can.”

He remembers that Melanie was nervous about rappelling down the side of a building while training in Dartmouth at Tauten, an industrial service company which helps Easter Seals offer the rappelling adventure. But in the end she did it.

While rappelling down 23 stories of Halifax’s tallest building — in a wheelchair — Melanie scattered seeds of the Everlast Flower in memory of her parents and her sister Melodie, who had recently passed.

“The Drop Zone experience was the end of my grief at not being able to ski,” Melanie says. “It was my great leap of faith.”

In between exploring the unlimited possibilities of her next blank canvas with wet brush in hand, this winter Melanie hopes to get back to curling, and next summer she is signed up to learn how to sail a small, two-person sloop in the Northwest Arm.

Her greatest fear? Losing her independence, she says. To that end she has advocated for greater accessibility for people with disabilities in the country. She expects a National Accessibility Bill to pass in the House of Commons in 2020.

Her final word? “Accept your new reality but challenge what you can do. If you are dizzy, learn how to sail. Always try to be aware of what goodness can come out of a new activity.”

Having Ataxia described as a neurological condition consisting of the lack of voluntary co-ordination of muscle movements that includes gait abnormality — means that Melanie doesn’t always know where her body is in space, coupled with an inability to measure how long it will take her to travel in space. For example, getting across a crosswalk in time before the lights change is difficult. Her brain does not compute what needs to be negotiated in order to do this task safely.

Canadian Paraplegic Association CPA (N.S.) provides a range of comprehensive, equitable and holistic services for persons with spinal chord Injuries and other mobility disabilities, as well as for their families and friends. The association offers counselling series, community advocacy, peer support, information services, and vocational and employment support services.

The Drop Zone program was adopted by Easter Seals Nova Scotia as a fundraiser experience in 2003, and was adopted across the country afterward. Easter Seals advocates for a barrier-free Nova Scotia and provides top-quality services which promote mobility, inclusion and independence for people with disabilities in the province.